Banking, money and taxes......

Living in Australia these 16 months, I've opened up an account and I've used money to buy things and pay bills.There are many banks here, Citibank is even here. They have four "major" banks and they are, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, Australia and New Zealand  Banking Group (ANZ) for short and National Australia Bank (NAB) for short. Banking here is a LOT different to the US systems. In the US, I had a checking account and a savings account that had a book. Yes, I know there are book-less savings accounts nowadays too. Here, when you get paid, it's never via paper check, it's automatically deposited into your nominated account, you even get your statement via email.  When you pay your rent or mortgage it comes out of your account, you have the option to do it yourself or have it taken out on the set date, no mailing of checks. Checks, money orders and bank cheques are only used for major purchases such as houses and cars or when having to pay for something like a Federal Police Check.  When going shopping, you can pay with cash, credit cards or debit cards, with your debit cards you can either use your PIN or tap-n-go. Currency here is $100, $50, $20, $10 and $5 notes, $2, $1, 50 cent, 20 cent, 10 cent and 5 cent coins. The dollar coins are gold and the cent pieces are silver in color. There are no one cent pieces here, if something costs $1.99 it's costing you $2 unless you pay with your card, then you're paying $1.99, prices are rounded to the nearest fifth at the checkout.

 Tax here is 10% but, and I love this, the price you see is the price you pay. So when you see that McDonald's commercial in the US saying you can get chicken nuggets for a buck, it's a big fat lie, as they still need to add tax to that. You walk into McDonald's here and want something off the dollar menu, guess what it's a dollar! Not $1.10 or whatever tax needs to be added. Same thing when buying a car, they tell you this car is $25, 000.00 drive-away, no added costs,  the tax has already been added into the price, they do show you the tax amount in the breakdown. Even shopping for groceries, the tax is there and it shows up on your receipt, they're informing you of the full price up front. If you see an outfit and you simply have to have it, you know that the price you see is the price you pay, you don't have to sit there and figure what the tax is going to be on anything. 

Australian notes 

Australian coins

Tap-n-go